After decades of the fastest economic growth in the world, China’s economy has started to slow down. This is perhaps inevitable, given an average annual growth rate of around 10% was sustained for almost…

Using urban space for food production makes food easier to transport, not to mention cheaper.
littleny/Shutterstock.comDecember 28 2014

The aftermath of Christmas is a good time to think about where consumer-capitalism is getting us. The sad fact is that, with these values, our society can never be ecologically sustainable or just. Accelerating…

Global environmental and social welfare per capita has not improved since the 1980s.
www.shutterstock.comDecember 8 2014

The focus of the recently concluded G20 summit was economic growth. The final communiqué begins: “Raising global growth to deliver better living standards and quality jobs for people across the world is…

It has been a long road back for Britain from the economic crisis of 2007/8. The chancellor’s Autumn Statement is an indication of how he aims to keep growth on track, but the prime minister has already…

Are we really in charge of our own destiny?
Flickr/Michael ShaneDecember 2 2014

Nietzsche’s much quoted line “God is dead” was not, as it is often presented, a statement of triumphant atheism but was a warning and a call to action. We had killed God with rationalism and science. With…

Despite Australia’s best efforts, climate change muscled its way onto the G20 agenda. The summit’s final communique included one paragraph restating the importance of international negotiations in Paris…

United on the need for stronger economic growth.
Lukas Coch/AAPNovember 16 2014

The G20 leaders have reaffirmed a commitment to raise global growth, saying if more than 800 agreed measures are “fully implemented”, GDP will grow by an additional 2.1% by 2018, adding more than US$2…

The risks facing the planet call for a new approach to economics.
Red Cross/AAPNovember 16 2014

Focusing on growth, the Brisbane G20 leaders' summit has not grappled with three key issues. How much more growth can the planet survive? How can poorer nations raise their living standards to parity with…

The recent US-China climate announcement is a significant development in humanity’s equivocal response to the climate crisis. Despite over four decades of political engagement with climate change, tangible…

At the G20 meeting in Brisbane on the weekend we are going to hear a lot of talk about current accounts, GDP, CPI as well as a whole blizzard of more obscure acronyms and economic measures. To help you…

In harmony. The link between the EU and UK jobs.
Kalyan NeelamrajuNovember 11 2014

Whichever way you look at it, the UK is going through a stormy period in its relationship with the European Union. David Cameron has promised to renegotiate the UK’s relations with the EU and to hold a…

Australia’s standard of living is under threat.
Scott Woodman/FlickrNovember 9 2014

When the G20 finance ministers agreed in February to significantly raise global growth, they locked in a goal of lifting collective GDP by more than 2%. This was a cumulative goal - that is a total of…

From St Petersburg to Brisbane. The G20 leaders are expected to cover a lot of territory.
Sergei Karpukhin/EPA/AAPNovember 5 2014

Suppose that on the evening of November 16, the G20 leaders release a 25-page communique with hundreds of recommendations on global health, security, climate change, human rights etc. Would this be regarded…

Where are the women? Though light on female representation, the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors can’t ignore the role women could play towards boosting economic growth.
Drew Angerer/EPA/AAPNovember 3 2014

Many Australian women will know the G20 summit is coming up in Brisbane, but they may not think it has much relevance to their daily lives. But that is not the case. Joe Hockey needs us, and he may not…

The Earth is finite - so are there limits to growth?
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center/FlickrOctober 29 2014

“But who do you think’s right, Prof? The optimists or the pessimists?” At the end of my sustainability economics course in 2007, students were challenging me to end 20 years of professional fence-sitting…

Having a ball: How politicians can make smiley happy people.
seanbjackOctober 23 2014

The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems – the problems of…

Since 1990, GDP per person in China has doubled and then redoubled. With average incomes multiplying fourfold in little more than two decades, one might expect many of the Chinese people to be dancing…

Last week the IMF revised its 2014 global economic growth forecast down to 3.3% from the 3.7% expected six months ago, confirming that most economies around the world, Australia included, continue to underperform…

Time to get off the economic growth train?
Sergey Nivens/ShutterstockOctober 1 2014

What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy…